TBA 3

Unraced at 2, Cloud Computing would be making just his fourth career start and third straight in a graded stakes in the Preakness.

A dark bay or brown son of Maclean’s Music, Cloud Computing had enough points to qualify for the Kentucky Derby (G1) but was declared from contention by his connections – who also campaign Practical Joke – due to his lack of seasoning.

Cloud Computing didn’t make his race debut until Feb. 11, taking a six-furlong maiden special weight at Aqueduct by 1 ¾ lengths despite having to steady between horses after an awkward start. His stakes debut came less than four weeks later in the Gotham (G3), where he was a solid second to Derby contender J Boys Echo and 7 ½ lengths ahead of third-place finisher and multiple Grade 3 winner El Areeb.

From there Cloud Computing was sent to the 1 1/8-mile Wood Memorial, where he went off as the 7-5 third choice in a field of eight. Breaking from Post 7, he came with a three-wide run down the stretch to finish third behind Derby contender Irish War Cry with Battalion Runner second.

As with many of the horses owned by Klaravich Stables and Bill Lawrence, Cloud Computing gets his name from the financial nature of their businesses.

Past Performances

Jockey

Javier Castellano

The four-time defending Eclipse Award winner as North America’s top jockey, Javier Castellano reached the pinnacle of his career when he was voted for induction to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in August 2017, his first year on the ballot.

In his previous Preakness mounts, the 38-year-old Venezuelan rider won with Bernardini in 2006, was 10th with Aikenite in 2010, fourth with General a Rod in 2014, third with Divining Rod in 2015 and 10th with Collected in 2016. Bernardini’s victory was overshadowed by the breakdown of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, but he went on to capture the Jim Dandy, Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup and was voted the Eclipse Award as top 3-year-old male.

The son and nephew of jockeys, Castellano has broken the single-season record for victories at Gulfstream Park’s winter meet three times and won five consecutive riding titles from 2011-16, including his first victory in the Florida Derby (G1) with Constitution in 2014.

In 2013, Castellano was North America’s leading rider in both wins (362) and purses ($26.2 million), breaking Ramon Dominguez’s previous single-season earnings mark and being voted his first-ever Eclipse Award as top jockey. He earned the Eclipse Award again in 2014, 2015 and 2016, becoming the first to win four straight since Hall of Famer Jerry Bailey (2000-03).

Castellano moved to the U.S. in June 1997 and won his first career race the following month at the former Calder Race Course aboard Phone Man. He has been leading rider at Belmont Park, Aqueduct’s fall, inner track and spring meets, as well as at Hialeah and Tropical-at-Calder.

Married to the daughter of Terry Meyocks, a former NYRA and NTRA executive who is now national director of the Jockeys’ Guild, Castellano rode 2004 Horse of the Year Ghostzapper to wins in Tom Fool, Woodward and Breeders’ Cup Classic that year, as

well as the 2003 Vosburgh and 2005 Met Mile.

Castellano earned his fifth victory in the Travers (G1) at Saratoga in 2015 when Keen Ice rallied to upset Triple Crown champion American Pharoah. He scored his fifth and sixth Breeders’ Cup wins in 2015 with Stopchargingmaria in the Distaff (G1) and Liam’s Map in the Dirt Mile (G1). In 2011, he claimed the top prize in the Jockey Challenge at Pimlico.

Owner

Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence

Chestnut Hill, Mass. resident Seth Klarman of Klaravich Stables was born in New York City but moved with his family to Baltimore, just a few blocks from Pimlico Race Course, at the age of 6. His mother taught English while his father was a public health economist at Johns Hopkins University.

Klarman, who turns 60 the day after the Preakness, graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University in 1979 with a degree in economics, later earning a diploma from Harvard Business School in 1982. He was recruited by the fledgling Boston-based Baupost Group and today serves as president, chief executive and portfolio manager of one of the largest hedge funds in the world, with assets valued at $31 billion. He is also a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox.

In 1993, Klarman formed Klaravich Stables with his friend from Baltimore, Jeff Ravich, buying and racing horses together until Ravich left to start his own stable on the West Coast. Klarman began buying and racing horses in partnership with William Lawrence in 2006. Among the horses he has campaigned alone or with Lawrence are Grade 1 winners Subordination, Practical Joke, Currency Swap and Annals of Time as well as graded stakes winners Read the Footnotes, Outperformance, One and Twenty, Sum of the Parts, Summer Doldrums, Takeover Target, Central Banker, Balance the Books and Paid Up Subscriber.

Lawrence is CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Meridian Capital Partners, an Albany, N.Y.-based preeminent investment adviser managing alternative investments since 1994, where he oversees all aspects of the firm’s investment management function and provides strategic leadership. Lawrence grew up in the Albany suburb of Latham, N.Y., getting his introduction to racing at age 12 at Saratoga Race Course. He met Klarman through a mutual friend.

Trainer

Chad Brown

Still just 38 years old, Brown has emerged as one of the most successful horsemen in thoroughbred racing today, earning his first Eclipse Award as North America’s leading trainer in 2016. He has never run a horse in the Preakness.

A native of upstate New York, not far from famed Saratoga Race Course, Brown apprenticed under Hall of Fame trainers Shug McGaughey and the late Bobby Frankel. Holder of a degree in animal science from Cornell University, went out on his own in 2007 and quickly established himself as a top talent, picking up his first winner on Nov. 27, 2007 with Dual Jewels at Churchill Downs.

In 2008, Brown won the first of his eight Breeders’ Cup races with Maram in the inaugural Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1), and picked up his second with Zagora in the 2012 Filly & Mare Turf. Zagora also gave Brown his first Grade 1 triumph, winning the Diana at Saratoga in 2011. He won the Juvenile Fillies Turf, Turf Sprint and Filly & Mare Turf in 2014, the Filly & Mare Sprint and Filly & Mare Turf in 2015, and the Juvenile Fillies Turf in 2016.

In 2012, Brown started his first horse in a Triple Crown race when Street Life ran fourth in the Belmont Stakes. Normandy Invasion in 2013 was his first Derby starter, followed by My Man Sam and Shagaf in 2016 and Practical Joke this year.